Recently He said...

G-d: What's wrong?

Me: I'm... a little upset. At me.

G-d: The book again?

Me: Yeah. I kinda got... wrapped up in the idea and not the meaning again. I just want to go home so bad and since you said I could I'm impatient and-

G-d: You'll get there.

Me: It's not a lack of interest by my family that should bother me, should it?

G-d: Neither should it be a lack of theirs either. Do you know for sure they don't have deep thoughts?

Me: You couldn't tell me without breaking the rules?

G-d: Not really. I can't tell you anything that you could not know for yourself already. I can do what you asked, and help you find what I already gave you, but I can't give you that. What do you think?

Me: They must. Seems unavoidable in being human.

G-d: More to the point what do you have faith of them for?

Me: Not simple because they're human, but because I know them... They do, I guess. Would be nice if they'd share it with me. We went on that trip for the wedding, I wore the kippah, I tried to follow along in the siddur, I felt what they offered me. We went home and it was like they weren't Jewish or anything else anymore. I remember her garbling the blessings over the menorah... and me, I bought the candles.

G-d: You hated sitting through those evangelist meetings with your mother for the same thing you'd kill for now.

Me: I hate rote groupthink and silencing my questions just to get along, but some days what I would do just to have her pray with me. Or for her mother to take it seriously when I spend time in the kosher section. I have never done anything to suck up to them not from day one. I am what I am and we married and that is it. I'm not doing this for them. I just never realized how little they care any more. Just because her dad died.

G-d: Are you sure that's why?

Me: How can you possibly exist or give a damn if her dad died on her birthday? Why should they talk to you? I know shit happens to good people for no reason. I never thought you were punishing me. No, I did, but the way a kid does. Not seriously.

G-d: Sure?

Me: No, not really. I just... We're... adults. It's not our first time at the dance. We should be able to get over what happened to someone else umpteen years ago and get on with our lives. Why put any importance on raising our kids Jewish, which she once upon a time put to me as important, if we don't actually ever do anything Jewish as a family? Just because the former keeper of the religious flame has passed doesn't mean we can't try to remember.

G-d: Maybe it hurts less to remember less. We all have our way of dealing with depression.

Me: What's yours?

G-d: Talking with you. All of you.

Me: How does our not listening make you less depressed?

G-d: It's the ones who talk back who make me happy. Sometimes, it does seem as if no one cared about me either. I don't mean all the things you do in rituals... just to be acknowledged. I... I know the world doesn't need me. That was the genius of it. I could set it running and never look back and it would just go... and then I made you and I so badly wanted to know what I was, who I was, I put me into you, and now you are as alone and confused and hopefull as I am. Believe me, I didn't want to saddle you with the concerns of being a creator. I just wanted to not be alone.

Me: So then you know what it is that I'm feeling here.

G-d: I don't have anyone for minyan. No one to tell me I'm doing the right thing other than because they're afraid I'll punish them. Other I mean than you're doing by talking to me. When you talk to me, you're actually treating me like my opinion matters. Like I exist. Like I'm right to have made all this.

Me: What can I do?

G-d: Same as me, which you'll agree is entirely ironic...

Me: Just keep on keepin on...

G-d: Pretty much. They mean well. Really they do. I'm not saying that out of pride in my creations either. They want better and they can feel what it is. Your wife and mother-in-law included. Just keep on learning and if they don't even attend when you go to the synagogue to complete the process, something of them was in you when you went so... they did go... in a way...

Me: You don't want me to spend my time crying, do you?

G-d: About what you now know that you didn't before? No... Please... I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier.

Me: No problem. You had a good reason. You weren't trying to hurt me.

G-d: Thanks. No one ever considers I could do something for a good reason but still cause hurt. They try to explain it away. I am capable of hurting my kids too.

Me: And if you weren't of what value could your love be? You had to choose your way or it would be meaningless. You'd be a rule of physics.

G-d: Now you're sounding like me.

Me: I don't mean to. Not to throw it back in your face. I know you're hurt too but... you don't have to be any more. I'm handling it. Really. It wasn't something anyone would have known before. Not like they have a meter for it.

G-d: Well, I could have made it easier for you to fit in.

Me: I might have forgotten who I was and that would have wasted a life and delayed my work another generation. I got stuff to do like everyone else and it won't get done if I don't know who I am, to tell me what my job is.

G-d: Yeah, this free will thing does have some rough edges.

Me: Thanks for it anyways. I did at least learn to crochet first.

G-d: You have nothing on your kitchen table to make cozies for.

Me: Don't tell my wife, she'll buy something to cheer me up and money is tight enough.

G-d: That's the spirit!

Me: Some day that story will make more sense?

G-d: More now than now makes than before, yes. Finished, no. That story hasn't finished yet, and you have a lot to do.

Me: Wish me luck.

G-d: What do you need that for? You have me.

Me: Oh, great...

G-d: Come on, I'll pay attention this time. I promise.

Me: I want to learn cat's craddle before I go.

G-d: We'll see. Now turn around and get on with your day. I'm right behind you.

Me: ...

I closed my eyes and wanted to cry. I didn't want to do what He was telling me. I wanted to talk more but work and my day's thoughts were banging at the doors of my mind and I had to get on with it. Not because He said so, but He said so because it was so and He's not a sadistic deity. He means well too. Since He put so much of Himself in us, we must to. I mean to do what I have to.

Whatever that is.

Thankfully, He decided to be His smirking self: Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt came on the net radio then and plays now. That song always made me want to cry. I have work to do.